The tagline of the Fallout franchise may be “war never changes,” but the scenario for a video game adaptation is sure to come. Once considered a Hollywood joke, video game adaptations have experienced a renaissance in recent years, thanks to high-quality, high-grossing, and critically acclaimed films such as Super Mario Bros. Movie And like the series The last of us. The next big game adaptation, Fallout, hopes to join the upward trend of this category of movies and television.
Announced in 2020 for Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service, Fallout tells a distinct story within a post-apocalyptic Wasteland with a familiar backdrop from the various games in the series. After the nuclear war, the survivors retreated to the vaults to await the detonation and destruction of the bombs. Nearly 200 years later, a young vault dweller named Lucy emerges in a devastated Los Angeles.
For actress Ella Purnell, who played Lucy, watching playthroughs of the games was important to understanding the tone of the world, but since Lucy is a unique character created for the show, she took her performance to the next level. Dependent on other aspects to arrive. “When I want to get into the psychology of what happens when you spend your whole life underground, and then you come to the surface, it’s a different kind of mindset,” she says. “I wanted to come with him myself.”
Bethesda’s Todd Howard executive produced and worked with the cast and crew on set, but actor Walton Goggins, who plays a mutated bounty hunter known as The Ghoul, plays in the Fallout world and Also credits the writing team for balancing the comedy perfectly. “It was all on the page,” says Goggins. “They did their homework, and it was in the DNA of the story they created. It’s not Fallout 1, 2, or 3. It’s its own thing. It’s original content in the Fallout world. .
Jonathan Nolan, who wrote on famous films Monument, Prestige, Dressed in blackAnd Interstellar Co-created the science fiction HBO series with his brother Christopher Westworld With Burn Notes author Lisa Joy. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy were paired together. Fallout As co-writer and executive producer for Amazon, Jonathan Nolan also serves as director.
Each of the three main characters approaches the world from a different perspective. Lucy is a naive vault dweller stepping out of her underground home for the first time in her life, while The Ghoul is a gunslinger who has lived in the Wasteland longer than Lucy has. Meanwhile, Maximus, played by actor Aaron Moton, is a member of the Brotherhood of Steel faction, making sure he also has a different worldview than the other two main characters.
“I think the character creator is where the idea comes from,” Moton says. “[Nolan] It’s talking a lot about what kind of player he is who spends eight hours in the creator before even getting into the game. It’s good to have such different perspectives, you know?
with Fallout Showing promise and holding a great generation of talent behind it, video game adaptations continue to show that they can and should be taken seriously. The stigma of a video game movie or show — especially a live-action one — is finally falling by the wayside.
But it goes beyond genealogy. After all, many poorly received films and series have excellent writing teams, directors, producers and casts. Speaking to the actors, what drew them to the project was the opportunity to tell stories within a rich and expansive world that many players are already familiar with, while connecting that aspect with real-world themes. Many of me experienced it at the same time. Fallout It was announced in summer 2020.
“It’s also interesting with what we’ve gone through as a global community with COVID and how things have changed dramatically for all of us, but our own human, destructive side is still there,” Moton says. are,” says Moton. “We found a way to connect with each other. Something that’s similar to Fallout is the factions. It’s humanity trying to reboot itself, and there’s just these different positions on it.
Goggins argues that the recent upward momentum of game adaptations may be a sign of its novelty compared to other genres. “You follow good storytelling no matter where it is, and the games that are being adapted into movies and TV shows right now are there for a reason. That’s where the great stories are, and Fallout is a great story,” he says. “I think with any new genre, there’s a learning curve. What do the fans expect? What licenses can you take outside of the game? And when do you stay in the game? I think people understand that. They were trying their best. […] I think it’s just like, ‘She didn’t work in that’ or ‘She didn’t work in that’, and they’re fine-tuning and fine-tuning, and everybody’s watching what everybody else did. . And now we’re in a really sweet place with some really great stories that deserve to be told with great people.
We’ll soon find out if this is one of those great stories that will become another poster child for video game adaptations. Fallout It will arrive on Amazon Prime Video tomorrow. Not only that, but the series has already been picked up for a second season.
This article originally appeared in Game Informer issue 363.